Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(119)

“I know you would. And you know I love it here, but—”

“I know, Tamar. I know. You’ll find your place.”

Her smile was knowing. “Are you about ready to tell me about this boy who broke my baby’s heart?” She lifted a brow. “I want to know whose ass I have to kick.”

Wistful laughter fumbled from me and my smile trembled. “Maybe that’s the hardest part of it all. He broke it in the best way. He found me when I didn’t know I was lost. Turned me in the right direction. It was him who pointed me home.”

“You’re here because of him?”

I gave a small shrug. “No…but in some ways, yes. He forced me to see myself. To hear where I was being called.”

“It takes someone brave to listen.”

I choked over the swell of emotion. “He used to call me that… Brave.”

Sympathy clouded her blue eyes that were the same color as mine, her voice soft as she reached out to play with a few stray strands of my hair. “You love him?”

My insides shuddered and screamed and flailed.

Searching for a way to fill up the hole he’d left behind. Carved out and bleeding.

Hollow.

Every time he barged into my life, he took a little more when he left me behind.

“So much,” I whispered as I released the tears Lyrik had taken the time to show me weren’t a weakness.

They were ones I deserved to shed.

And God. I missed him so much it reminded me of death. His name equating to loss and grief and sorrow. And still, his touch had been my resurrection.

This beautiful, tormented boy.

He’d both wrecked me and breathed the life back into me.

The conflicting emotions got locked up in my chest. Because the deepest part of me knew where I belonged was with him.

And I remembered.

I remembered.

Even after he was gone.

He was worth every second of the pain.

Light tapping at my door roused me from sleep. It was the drifting kind, where I hovered just above full coherency, as if watching my life suspended above it all.

It felt so strange, this broken heart up against the overwhelming feeling of being free. Missing him and being so thankful to be home.

The door creaked open. “Hey,” my mother said as she slipped into my room. Late afternoon light bled in through the parted drapes, shadows playing on the vista, dancing up and down the peaks and ridges of the mountains.

“Hi,” I said as I tried to establish my bearings. I blinked through the daze as I sat up.

She sank down on the bed next to me, ran her fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry to wake you.”

“No…it’s fine.”

She hesitated. “I thought you might want this.”

My attention traveled to the small yellow mailer she held in her hands.

Dread and hope.

They slammed me.

God, what was wrong with me?

She glanced at me from the side. “It’s for you…I think.”

Unease rustled through my dim room, and I pulled in a deep breath as I gathered the courage to peek at what was written across the front. Somehow already knowing what would be there.

There was no address.

No first or last name.

It simply said Blue.

That statement was written in his bold script. As if he were reaching out. Touching me. This boy who chased me in my dreams and haunted my nights.

“Where did you find this?” I managed.

Her lips thinned. “It was sitting at the front door. I’m guessing it’s from him?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

She touched my chin. “Okay…I’ll give you some time.”

“Thank you,” I whispered as I accepted the padded envelope. I held it against my chest until she snapped the door closed behind her. Silence stole over the room, my breaths increasing to a pant.

Anxiety. Emotions running wild.

Was I really going to allow him to do this to me again? Pull and pull and pull until he pushed me away?

Swallowing, I ripped open the seal. A disk fell out. Blue was again scripted across it.

Warily, I stood, paced, wondered. Before I gave and sat down at the small desk and lifted my laptop lid, shaking as I slid the disk inside.

There was one file on it.

A video.

Fumbling, I pressed my headphones into my ears, my pulse at a sprint and my spirit in a frenzy, while the rational, logical side screamed at me to toss the disk in the trash. To protect. To find some semblance of those walls.

But I couldn’t stop myself from pressing play.

The screen filled with Lyrik.

So big and bold and beautiful.

My breath caught and my heart skipped.

He was sitting on a hotel bed with an acoustic guitar balanced on his lap. Those eyes were sad and brimming with remorse, his mouth vacant of that smirk. He scratched at his temple, as if this menacing, malicious man didn’t know what to do with himself.

“Blue.”

My insides quaked with it falling like a plea from his tongue.

Eyes dropping closed, he looked away, before he turned his attention to the camera. “I’ve written a lot of songs in my life. For a long damn time, they were the only real joy I had. And this one…it’s the most important one I’ve ever written, even though I could never bring myself to get to the end.”